Stoves - Gas/electric

I work for a LPG distributor, but do mostly large volume commercial/industrial installations- but I came up through the ranks;).
A 45 KG bottle contains a bit under 89 litres and - is around $28.00 a year to rent. A kilo of gas gives you 50.4 Mj/Hr or a litre 25.4 Mj/HR. I'm getting rusty but a stove uses around 30Mj/hr on all 4 burners & the oven around 12 mj/hr.
A Bosch or Rinnai instantaneous system uses 160Mj/hr, but I think there are now models suitable for 1 tap that are 120Mj/hr.

For a comparison to electricity, a kilo of LPG = 14KW, so a 45kg bottle contains the equivalent of roughly 630kw. (We used to say 623kw) I'm paying 16.25 cents per kw in Melb which works out to over $100 a bottle :eek:
I'd do what NM suggests & just rent one - if you dont use the oven much it will last well over a year- and have a caravan 9kg as reserve while a new 45kg is arranged to replace the MT one.
Confused??

Go Gas, we have a Gas Cooktop and an underbench gas oven for 2/sometimes 3 people and our gas bottles last up to 18 months each, we don't pay any rental fee for our bottles, shop around not all charge rental.
You may have trouble finding a gas oven, most are now electric, Westinghouse and Chef still make gas ovens as do some European manufacturers, if you go gas get an oven that is flued to the outside that way you wont get cooking fumes in the house. Wood and Coke ovens that also heat water are fine in Winter but too hot to have running in Summer, Regards Frank.

I did the economics of an instantaneous gas when I replaced my Off Peak 1 electric.
From the manufacturers gas usage it was going to be very expensive to have just 2 X 5 minute showers a day, so my conclusion was to buy another electric for off peak 1 use.

If you use $45 in off peak 1 hot water, I would suggest bottled gas will be about 4 times as expensive. I have had extensive experience with gas and electric instantaneous and they are a PITA with having sometimes to put the sink tap on as well to get them to switch on. However I was willing to have the hassle until I saw the cost!

We have a gas cook top and use a gas non flued portable heater for about 2 weeks a year in Avoca Beach and use about 1 cylinder per year.
Regards Philip A

I will not go into the economics of it I will leave that to DeeJay and others who have actual figures. I think it comes down to what sort of cooking you do. I can't comment on induction but electrical element cooking is a pain. Gas is instant and electric is not, if you like stry fried food gas is the way.

Electric ovens are the way to go particularly if you want fan forced cooking.

Off peak electric water heating is fine until you have a few people over and the last few get a cold shower. I have instant gas hot water and for a small family (2) it is great, cheaper than storing hot water in a tank and not using all that you store. When you do need a lot of hot water it is not going to run out. For the few times that you need a lot of hot water the extra running costs in this situation of instant over storage are acceptable.

There are problems with instant HWS. Having multiple taps on is a problem as is the minimum amount of water that you need to trigger the heater. However this once again is fine with a small family. If you have a few kids flicking the hot water on here and there I suspect this could become a pain.

I would be considering induction cooking. It is quite good and is also instant like gas. I don't like anything but gas stove, oven and hot water but I think you will save a bit by keeping it electric and not even needing to hook up gas.
The induction does have draw-backs like only being able to use certain types of pans and they can be a bit more expensive but it is not to much more.

You also can't burn yourself on induction so that is pretty impressive and if you leave it on but forget to put a pan on then nothing heats up. I accidentally left my gas stove on all day the other day and I wasn't home:eek:

I have a seperate lpg gas ring outside to do some stuff because I have never seen a stove with a really really hot burner for wokking etc.

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Originally Posted by Xavie

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I have a seperate lpg gas ring outside to do some stuff because I have never seen a stove with a really really hot burner for wokking etc.

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Our Alenzi range has a wok ring that uses an inner and outer ring on the burner to get the heat.

The other thing I forgot to mention is one downside of gas is that the flame can be influenced by breezes. If your house has lots of windows and you can get real crossflow ventilation happening it can really slow down cooking.
I was trying to poach some eggs fro brekky one morning and I couldn't work out why the water wasn't simmering when it should be.
I judiciously closed a couple of windows and problem solved :whistling:

Yes, my gas stove has a wok burner but it is no where near as good as they could make them. When I was looking the only stoves which had a proper wok burner were 5 grand+

For an idea we have bottle gas and is our heating. In winter the truck comes every 8 weeks. There are 2 of the 45kg bottles on the side of the house. We have only run out 4 times.

We are in the bush so to speak...we have tank water...gas cook top and oven and instantaneous hot water system....works a treat we have 2 45KG bottles and they will last better part of 5-7 months depending how much we are touring around OZ:D

and has previously stated when the power goes out you can't flush the loo or have a drink let alone have a shower so a generator is the first thing you should buy:D

hope this helps

Mrs ho har:angel:

We have purchased an Italian brand stainless wth gas top and elect fan forced oven. A very good system up here as cyclones can leave us without power usually once a year or so. The new style oven seems to be very good heating up quickly and our elect bill hasn't changed that much from the previous gas stove